Fall of Italy: Guardian report, September 1943

Italy's surrender, six weeks after the overthrow of the tyrant who led her into this ruinous war, brings glory and opportunity to the allied arms and relief to those Italians who lie outside the line which will possibly be maintained across their country by the Germans. A high price was paid for delay in face of the inevitable; many towns have suffered. For the sake of the Italian people and of the treasures their genius has produced we may rejoice that the hours of suspense have ended. What more destruction now comes, in the north or elsewhere, will be a German responsibility.

It is a peculiar situation that we now have in Italy. It is almost as though, suddenly, Italy had changed into the position of one of the occupied countries – France or Norway – in which the German army holds down a subject people. Italy has surrendered; her planes will no longer fly against us, but her airfields, as far as we know, are used by the Germans.

Italian official propaganda put up a brave fight to pretend that the country was still in the war, while all the time negotiations for surrender were going on quietly. The bewildered people did not, however, know that, and it says something for the depth of popular feeling that even a controlled press broke through the barriers. While the official agency was declaring that Italy continued the war with the support of the whole country, La Stampa, of Turin, was saying openly that there were only two problems demanding co-operation and support from Italians: first, that of getting out of the war; second, that of getting out as soon as possible. The forces making for peace were overwhelming. All neutral observers note the depths of misery and humiliation into which Italy has been plunged by the collapse of the regime – a revelation of utter bankruptcy of leadership – and by the destruction of her cities. Italy, writes a Swedish observer, "is going through a crisis that is more serious than the setbacks she has suffered on the battlefields ... The bitter hour of self-analysis has come." Or take La Stampa last week:

"The picture is so discouraging that imagination, no matter how pessimistic, is outdone. There is no sphere of the national life in which the subversive and destructive action of the 'rebuilders' has not made itself felt. Coming into power in order to reorganise, fascism has disorganised everything. The prospect, which we daily see more fully and clearly, is one of ruin. Look at the most martyred of Italian cities, with its houses collapsing in the streets and its squares devastated by enemy bombs. It appears to symbolise the state to which the whole nation has been reduced in the space of 20 years by that movement which should have founded its civil prosperity and its economic and political power."

The rebirth of Italy will be painful, but her people are in no doubt about where responsibility for her misfortune lies.